Thích Quảng Đức Biography
When was he born?
When was Thich Quang Duce born?
Accounts of the life of Quang Duc are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hoi Khanh, in Van Ninh District of Khanh Hoa Province in central Vietnam as Lam Van Tuc, one of seven children of Lam Huu Ung and his wife, Nguyen Thi Nuong. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hoa thuong Thich Hoang Tham, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thich Hoang Tham raised him as a son and Lam Van Tuc changed his name to Nguyen Van Khiet. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thich Quang Duc. The Vietnamese name Thich (Shi ) is from "Thich Ca" or "Thich Gia" (Shi Jia ), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hoa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.  After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hoa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khanh Hoa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.  After his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phu Nhuan District of Gia Dinh Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quang Duc Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Duc was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xa Loi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Duc resigned. CANNOTANSWER
CANNOTANSWER
Thích Quảng Đức (; 1897 – 11 June 1963; born Lâm Văn Túc) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Quảng Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government led by Ngô Đình Diệm, a staunch Roman Catholic. Photographs of his self-immolation circulated around the world, drawing attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said of one photograph, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of the monk's death.

Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. As protests continued, the ARVN Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, launched raids across South Vietnam on Buddhist pagodas, seizing Quảng Đức's heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Quảng Đức's example, also immolating themselves. Eventually, a U.S.-backed coup toppled Diệm, who was assassinated on 2 November 1963.

Biography
Accounts of the life of Quảng Đức are derived from information disseminated by Buddhist organizations. He was born in the village of Hội Khánh, in Vạn Ninh District of Khánh Hòa Province in central Vietnam as Lâm Văn Túc, one of seven children of Lâm Hữu Ứng and his wife, Nguyễn Thị Nương. At the age of seven, he left to study Buddhism under Hòa thượng Thích Hoằng Thâm, who was his maternal uncle and spiritual master. Thích Hoằng Thâm raised him as a son and Lâm Văn Túc changed his name to Nguyễn Văn Khiết. At age 15, he took the samanera (novice) vows and was ordained as a monk at age 20 under the dharma name Thích Quảng Đức. The Vietnamese name Thích (釋) is from "Thích Ca" or "Thích Già" (釋迦), means "of the Shakya clan." After ordination, he traveled to a mountain near Ninh Hòa, vowing to live the life of a solitary Buddhism-practicing hermit for three years. He returned in later life to open the Thien Loc pagoda at his mountain retreat.

After his self-imposed isolation ended, he began to travel around central Vietnam expounding the dharma. After two years, he went into retreat at the Sac Tu Thien An pagoda near Nha Trang. In 1932, he was appointed an inspector for the Buddhist Association in Ninh Hòa before becoming the inspector of monks in his home province of Khánh Hòa. During this period in central Vietnam, he was responsible for the construction of 14 temples. In 1934, he moved to southern Vietnam and traveled throughout the provinces spreading Buddhist teachings. During his time in southern Vietnam, he also spent two years in Cambodia studying the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

Upon his return from Cambodia, he oversaw the construction of a further 17 new temples during his time in the south. The last of the 31 new temples that he was responsible for constructing was the Quan The Am pagoda in the Phú Nhuận District of Gia Định Province on the outskirts of Saigon. The street on which the temple stands was later renamed Quảng Đức Street in 1975. After the temple-building phase, Quảng Đức was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Panel on Ceremonial Rites of the Congregation of Vietnamese Monks, and as abbot of the Phuoc Hoa pagoda, which was the initial location of the Association for Buddhist Studies of Vietnam (ABSV). When the office of the ABSV was relocated to the Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main pagoda of Saigon, Quảng Đức resigned.

Self-immolation

Religious background

In a country where surveys of the religious composition at the time estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent, President Diệm was a member of the Catholic minority, and pursued discriminatory policies favoring Catholics for public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business arrangements and tax concessions. Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting that the officer was from a Buddhist family, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) converted to Roman Catholicism as their military prospects depended on it. Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias saw weapons given only to Roman Catholics, with some Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.

Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and there were forced conversions and looting, shelling, and demolition of pagodas in some areas, to which the government turned a blind eye. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diệm's regime. The "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to be obtained by those wishing to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm. Catholics were also de facto exempt from corvée labor, which the government obliged all citizens to perform, and United States aid was distributed disproportionately to Catholic majority villages by Diệm's regime.

The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country and enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform. The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at all major public events in South Vietnam, and Diệm dedicated his country to the Virgin Mary in 1959.

Buddhist discontent erupted following a ban in early May on flying the Buddhist flag in Huế on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Just days before, Catholics had been encouraged to fly the Vatican flag at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục of Huế, Diệm's elder brother. A large crowd of Buddhists protested the ban, defying the government by flying Buddhist flags on the Buddhist holy day of Vesak and marching on the government broadcasting station. Government forces fired into the crowd of protesters, killing nine people. Diệm's refusal to take responsibility—he blamed the Viet Cong for the deaths—led to further Buddhist protests and calls for religious equality. As Diem remained unwilling to comply with Buddhist demands, the frequency of protests increased.

Day of the act

On 10 June 1963, U.S. correspondents were informed that "something important" would happen the following morning on the road outside the Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Most of the reporters disregarded the message, since the Buddhist crisis had at that point been going on for more than a month, and the next day only a few journalists turned up, including David Halberstam of The New York Times and Malcolm Browne, the Saigon bureau chief for the Associated Press (AP). Quảng Đức arrived as part of a procession that had begun at a nearby pagoda. Around 350 monks and nuns marched in two phalanxes, preceded by an Austin Westminster sedan, carrying banners printed in both English and Vietnamese. They denounced the Diệm government and its policy towards Buddhists, demanding that it fulfill its promises of religious equality. Another monk offered himself, but Quảng Đức's seniority prevailed.

The act occurred at the intersection of Phan Đình Phùng Boulevard (now Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Street) and Lê Văn Duyệt Street (now Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street) (), a few blocks southwest of the Presidential Palace (now the Reunification Palace). Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon petrol can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Quảng Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Quảng Đức's head. Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words  ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.

Quảng Đức's last words before his self-immolation were documented in a letter he had left: 

David Halberstam wrote: 

The spectators were mostly stunned into silence, but some wailed and several began praying. Many of the monks and nuns, as well as some shocked passersby, prostrated themselves before the burning monk. Even some of the policemen, who had orders to control the gathered crowd, prostrated before him.

In English and Vietnamese, a monk repeated into a microphone: "A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr." After approximately 10 minutes, Quảng Đức's body was fully immolated and it eventually toppled backwards onto its back. Once the fire subsided, a group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be straightened and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xá Lợi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests."

By 1:30p.m. (13:30), around 1,000 monks had congregated inside to hold a meeting, while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but 100 monks slowly left the compound. Nearly 1,000 monks, accompanied by laypeople, returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 6:00p.m. (18:00), thirty nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xá Lợi. The police encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.

Funeral and aftermath
After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on 11 June to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Quảng Đức's death, Diệm canceled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart warned Nguyễn Đình Thuận, Diệm's Secretary of State, of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur. The Joint Communiqué and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on 16 June.

15 June was set as the date for the funeral, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside the Xá Lợi pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On 19 June, his remains were carried out of Xá Lợi to a cemetery  south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communiqué, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 500 monks.

Intact heart and symbolism

The body was re-cremated during the funeral, but Quảng Đức's heart remained intact and did not burn. It was considered to be holy and placed in a glass chalice at Xá Lợi Pagoda. The intact heart relic is regarded as a symbol of compassion. Quảng Đức has subsequently been revered by Vietnamese Buddhists as a bodhisattva (Bồ Tát), and accordingly is often referred to in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Thích Quảng Đức. On 21 August, the ARVN Special Forces of Nhu attacked Xá Lợi and other Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam. The secret police intended to confiscate Quảng Đức's ashes, but two monks had escaped with the urn, jumping over the back fence and finding safety at the U.S. Operations Mission next door. Nhu's men managed to confiscate Đức's charred heart.

The location chosen for the self-immolation, in front of the Cambodian embassy, raised questions as to whether it was coincidence or a symbolic choice. Trueheart and embassy official Charles Flowerree felt that the location was selected to show solidarity with the Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. South Vietnam and Cambodia had strained relations: in a speech on 22 May, Sihanouk had accused Diệm of mistreating Vietnamese and ethnic minority Khmer Buddhists. The pro-Diệm Times of Vietnam published an article on 9 June which claimed that Cambodian monks had been encouraging the Buddhist crisis, asserting it was part of a Cambodian plot to extend its neutralist foreign policy into South Vietnam. Flowerree noted that Diệm was "ready and eager to see a fine Cambodian hand in all the organized Buddhist actions".

Diệm reaction

Diệm made a radio address at 19:00 on the day of Quảng Đức's death, asserting that he was profoundly troubled by the event. He appealed for "serenity and patriotism", and announced that stalled negotiations would resume with the Buddhists. He claimed that negotiations had been progressing well and in a time of religious tension emphasized the role of the Roman Catholic philosophy of personalism in his rule. He alleged that extremists had twisted the facts and he asserted that the Buddhists can "count on the Constitution, in other words, me."

The ARVN responded to the appeal, putting on a show of solidarity behind Diệm to isolate dissident officers. Thirty high-ranking officers headed by General Lê Văn Tỵ declared their resolve to carry out all missions entrusted to the army for the defense of the constitution and the Republic. The declaration was a veneer which masked a developing plot to oust Diệm. Some of the signatories were to become personally involved in Diệm's overthrow and death in November. Generals Dương Văn Minh and Trần Văn Đôn, the presidential military advisor and the chief of the army who were to lead the coup, were overseas.

Madame Nhu (a Catholic convert from Buddhism and the wife of Diệm's younger brother and chief adviser Ngô Đình Nhu), who was regarded as the First Lady of South Vietnam at the time (as Diệm was a bachelor), said she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show". Later that month, Diệm's government charged that Quảng Đức had been drugged before being forced to commit suicide. The regime also accused Browne of bribing Quảng Đức to burn himself.

Political and media impact
Photographs taken by Malcolm Browne of the self-immolation quickly spread across the wire services and were featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The self-immolation was later regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist crisis and a critical point in the collapse of the Diệm regime.

Historian Seth Jacobs asserted that Quảng Đức had "reduced America's Diệm experiment to ashes as well" and that "no amount of pleading could retrieve Diệm's reputation" once Browne's images had become ingrained into the psyche of the world public. Ellen Hammer described the event as having "evoked dark images of persecution and horror corresponding to a profoundly Asian reality that passed the understanding of Westerners." John Mecklin, an official from the U.S. embassy, noted that the photograph "had a shock effect of incalculable value to the Buddhist cause, becoming a symbol of the state of things in Vietnam." William Colby, then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Far East Division, opined that Diệm "handled the Buddhist crisis fairly badly and allowed it to grow. But I really don't think there was much they could have done about it once that bonze burned himself."

President John F. Kennedy, whose government was the main sponsor of Diệm's regime, learned of Quảng Đức's death when handed the morning newspapers while he was talking to his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the phone. Kennedy reportedly interrupted their conversation about segregation in Alabama by exclaiming "Jesus Christ!" He later remarked that "no news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one." U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that "such grisly scenes have not been witnessed since the Christian martyrs marched hand in hand into the Roman arenas."

In Europe, the photographs were sold on the streets as postcards during the 1960s, and communist China distributed millions of copies of the photograph throughout Asia and Africa as evidence of what it called US imperialism. One of Browne's photographs remains affixed to the sedan in which Quảng Đức was riding and is part of a tourist attraction in Huế.
For Browne and the AP, the pictures were a marketing success. Ray Herndon, the United Press International (UPI) correspondent who had forgotten to take his camera on the day, was harshly criticized in private by his employer. UPI estimated that 5,000 readers in Sydney, then a city of around 1.5–2 million, had switched to AP news sources.

Diệm's English-language mouthpiece, the Times of Vietnam, intensified its attacks on both journalists and Buddhists. Headlines such as "Xá Lợi politburo makes new threats" and "Monks plot murder" were printed. One article questioned the relationship between the monks and the press by posing the question as to why "so many young girls are buzzing in and out of Xá Lợi early [in the day]" and then going on to allege that they were brought in for sexual purposes for the U.S. reporters.

Browne's award-winning photograph of Quảng Đức's death has been reproduced in popular media for decades, and the incident has been used as a touchstone reference in many films and television programs.

A still photograph of Quảng Đức's self-immolation taken by Browne was used for the cover of American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine's debut album which came out in 1992, as well as the cover of their single "Killing in the Name". That same photograph was used for the cover of Canadian electronic act Delerium's debut album Faces, Forms & Illusions, which came out in 1989.

Precedents and influence
Despite the shock of the Western public, the practice of Vietnamese monks self-immolating was not unprecedented. Instances of self-immolations in Vietnam had been recorded for centuries, usually carried out to honor Gautama Buddha. The most recently recorded case had been in North Vietnam in 1950. The French colonial authorities had tried to eradicate the practice after their conquest of Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but had not been totally successful. They did manage to prevent one monk from setting fire to himself in Huế in the 1920s, but he managed to starve himself to death instead. During the 1920s and 1930s, Saigon newspapers reported multiple instances of self-immolations by monks in a matter-of-fact style. The practice had also been seen in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1948 when a monk seated down in the lotus position on a pile of sawdust and soybean oil and set fire to himself in protest against the treatment of Buddhism by the anti-religious communists of Mao Zedong. His heart remained intact, as did that of Quảng Đức.

After Quảng Đức, five more Buddhist monks self-immolated up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated. On 1 November, the ARVN overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm and Nhu were assassinated the next day. Monks have followed Quảng Đức's example since for other reasons.

The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment. In one instance in 1963, the young son of an American officer based at the Saigon U.S. Embassy doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like." Thich Quang Duc's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protest against the Vietnam War. On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz an 82-year-old peace activist immolated herself in front of the Federal Department Store in northwest Detroit. Later that same year, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965.

See also

 List of civil rights leaders
 List of political self-immolations

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

– Official Buddhist monastery dedicated to Thích Quảng Đức

Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
20th-century Buddhist monks
1897 births
1963 suicides
Date of birth unknown
People from Khánh Hòa Province
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
Buddhist crisis
History of South Vietnam
Suicides in Vietnam
1963 in Vietnam
Filmed suicides
Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War
Self-immolations by Buddhists
Articles containing video clips
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Suicides by self-immolation
Buddhist martyrs
Photographs of protests
Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 42 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the launch. Only 3 of the 42 "first flyers" have been women (Helen Sharman for the United Kingdom in 1991, Anousheh Ansari for Iran in 2006, and Yi So-yeon for South Korea in 2008). Only three nations (Soviet Union/Russia, U.S., China) have launched their own crewed spacecraft, with the Soviets/Russians and the American programs providing rides to other nations' astronauts. Twenty-seven "first flights" occurred on Soviet or Russian flights while the United States carried fourteen.

Timeline
Note: All dates given are UTC. Countries indicated in bold have achieved independent human spaceflight capability.

Notes

Other claims
The above list uses the nationality at the time of launch. Lists with differing criteria might include the following people:
 Pavel Popovich, first launched 12 August 1962, was the first Ukrainian-born man in space.  At the time, Ukraine was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Michael Collins, first launched 18 July 1966 was born in Italy to American parents and was an American citizen when he went into space.
 William Anders, American citizen, first launched 21 December 1968, was the first Hong Kong-born man in space.
 Vladimir Shatalov, first launched 14 January 1969, was the first Kazakh-born man in space. At the time, Kazakhstan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Bill Pogue, first launched 16 November 1973, as an inductee to the 5 Civilized Tribes Hall of Fame can lay claim to being the first Native American in space.  See John Herrington below regarding technicality of tribal registration.
 Pyotr Klimuk, first launched 18 December 1973, was the first Belorussian-born man in space. At the time, Belarus was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Vladimir Dzhanibekov, first launched 16 March 1978, was the first Uzbek-born man in space. At the time, Uzbekistan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Paul D. Scully-Power, first launched 5 October 1984, was born in Australia, but was an American citizen when he went into space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.
 Taylor Gun-Jin Wang, first launched 29 April 1985, was born in China to Chinese parents, but was an American citizen when he went into space.
 Lodewijk van den Berg, launched 29 April 1985, was born in the Netherlands, but was an American citizen when he went into space.
 Patrick Baudry, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in French Cameroun (now part of Cameroon), but was a French citizen when he went into space.
 Shannon Lucid, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in China to American parents of European descent, and was an American citizen when she went into space.
 Franklin Chang-Diaz, first launched 12 January 1986, was born in Costa Rica, but was an American citizen when he went into space
 Musa Manarov, first launched 21 December 1987, was the first Azerbaijan-born man in space. At the time, Azerbaijan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Anatoly Solovyev, first launched 7 June 1988, was the first Latvian-born man in space. At the time, Latvia was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Volkov became Russian rather than Soviet citizens while still in orbit aboard Mir, making them the first purely Russian citizens in space.
 James H. Newman, American citizen, first launched 12 September 1993, was born in the portion of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands that is now the Federated States of Micronesia.
 Talgat Musabayev, first launched 1 July 1994, was born in the Kazakh SSR and is known in Kazakhstan as the "first cosmonaut of independent Kazakhstan", but was a Russian citizen when he went into space.
 Frederick W. Leslie, American citizen, launched 20 October 1995, was born in Panama Canal Zone (now Panama).
 Andy Thomas, first launched 19 May 1996, was born in Australia but like Paul D. Scully-Power was an American citizen when he went to space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.
 Carlos I. Noriega, first launched 15 May 1997, was born in Peru, but was an American citizen when he went into space.
 Bjarni Tryggvason, launched 7 August 1997, was born in Iceland, but was a Canadian citizen when he went into space.
 Salizhan Sharipov, first launched 22 January 1998, was born in Kyrgyzstan (then the Kirghiz SSR), but was a Russian citizen when he went into space. Sharipov is of Uzbek ancestry.
 Philippe Perrin, first launched 5 June 2002, was born in Morocco, but was a French citizen when he went into space.
 John Herrington, an American citizen first launched 24 November 2002, is the first tribal registered Native American in space (Chickasaw).  See also Bill Pogue above.
 Fyodor Yurchikhin, first launched 7 October 2002, was born in Georgia (then the Georgian SSR). He was a Russian citizen at the time he went into space and is of Pontian Greek descent.
 Joseph M. Acaba, first launched 15 March 2009, was born in the U.S. state of California to American parents of Puerto Rican descent.

Gallery

References

External links
Current Space Demographics, compiled by William Harwood, CBS News Space Consultant, and Rob Navias, NASA.

Lists of firsts in space
Spaceflight timelines This is a list of notable books by young authors and of books written by notable writers in their early years. These books were written, or substantially completed, before the author's twentieth birthday. 

Alexandra Adornetto (born 18 April 1994) wrote her debut novel, The Shadow Thief, when she was 13. It was published in 2007. Other books written by her as a teenager are: The Lampo Circus (2008), Von Gobstopper's Arcade (2009), Halo (2010) and Hades (2011).
Margery Allingham (1904–1966) had her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, about smugglers in 17th century Essex, published in 1923, when she was 19.
Jorge Amado (1912–2001) had his debut novel, The Country of Carnival, published in 1931, when he was 18.
Prateek Arora wrote his debut novel Village 1104 at the age of 16. It was published in 2010.
Daisy Ashford (1881–1972) wrote The Young Visiters while aged nine. This novella was first published in 1919, preserving her juvenile punctuation and spelling. An earlier work, The Life of Father McSwiney, was dictated to her father when she was four. It was published almost a century later in 1983.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (born 1984) had her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, published in 1999. Subsequent novels include Demon in My View (2000), Shattered Mirror (2001), Midnight Predator (2002), Hawksong (2003) and Snakecharm (2004).
Jane Austen (1775–1817) wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, between 1793 and 1795 when she was aged 18-20.
Ruskin Bond (born 1934) wrote his semi-autobiographical novel The Room on the Roof when he was 17. It was published in 1955.
Marjorie Bowen (1885–1952) wrote the historical novel The Viper of Milan when she was 16. Published in 1906 after several rejections, it became a bestseller.
Oliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) finished his novel Gabriel Denver in early 1872, when he was 17. It was published the following year.
Pamela Brown (1924–1989) finished her children's novel about an amateur theatre company, The Swish of the Curtain (1941), when she was 16 and later wrote other books about the stage.
Celeste and Carmel Buckingham wrote The Lost Princess when they were 11 and 9.
Flavia Bujor (born 8 August 1988) wrote The Prophecy of the Stones (2002) when she was 13.
Lord Byron (1788–1824) published two volumes of poetry in his teens, Fugitive Pieces and Hours of Idleness.
Taylor Caldwell's The Romance of Atlantis was written when she was 12.
 (1956–1976), Le Don de Vorace, was published in 1974.
Hilda Conkling (1910–1986) had her poems published in Poems by a Little Girl (1920), Shoes of the Wind (1922) and Silverhorn (1924).
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667), Tragicall History of Piramus and Thisbe (1628), Poetical Blossoms (published 1633).
Maureen Daly (1921–2006) completed Seventeenth Summer before she was 20. It was published in 1942.
Juliette Davies (born 2000) wrote the first book in the JJ Halo series when she was eight years old. The series was published the following year.
Samuel R. Delany (born 1 April 1942) published his The Jewels of Aptor in 1962.
Patricia Finney's A Shadow of Gulls was published in 1977 when she was 18. Its sequel, The Crow Goddess, was published in 1978.
Barbara Newhall Follett (1914–1939) wrote her first novel The House Without Windows at the age of eight. The manuscript was destroyed in a house fire and she later retyped her manuscript at the age of 12. The novel was published by Knopf publishing house in January 1927.
Ford Madox Ford (né Hueffer) (1873–1939) published in 1892 two children's stories,  The Brown Owl and The Feather, and a novel, The Shifting of the Fire.
Anne Frank (1929–1945) wrote her diary for two-and-a-half years starting on her 13th birthday. It was published posthumously as Het Achterhuis in 1947 and then in English translation in 1952 as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. An unabridged translation followed in 1996.
Miles Franklin wrote My Brilliant Career (1901) when she was a teenager.
Alec Greven's How to Talk to Girls was published in 2008 when he was nine years old. Subsequently he has published How to Talk to Moms, How to Talk to Dads and How to Talk to Santa.
Faïza Guène (born 1985) had  Kiffe kiffe demain published in 2004, when she was 19. It has since been translated into 22 languages, including English (as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow).
Sonya Hartnett (born 1968) was thirteen years old when she wrote her first novel, Trouble All the Way, which was published in Australia in 1984.
Alex and Brett Harris wrote the best-selling book Do Hard Things (2008), a non-fiction book challenging teenagers to "rebel against low expectations", at age 19. Two years later came a follow-up book called Start Here (2010).
Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) wrote The Black Moth when she was 17 and received a publishing contract when she was 18. It was published just after she turned 19.
Susan Hill (born 1942), The Enclosure, published in 1961.
S. E. Hinton (born 1948), The Outsiders, first published in 1967.
Palle Huld (1912–2010) wrote A Boy Scout Around the World (Jorden Rundt i 44 dage) when he was 15, following a sponsored journey around the world.
George Vernon Hudson (1867–1946) completed An Elementary Manual of New Zealand Entomology at the end of 1886, when he was 19, but not published until 1892.
Katharine Hull (1921–1977) and Pamela Whitlock (1920–1982) wrote the children's outdoor adventure novel The Far-Distant Oxus in 1937. It was followed in 1938 by Escape to Persia and in 1939 by Oxus in Summer.
Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) published Juvenilia; or, a Collection of Poems Written between the ages of Twelve and Sixteen by J. H. L. Hunt, Late of the Grammar School of Christ's Hospital in March 1801.
Kody Keplinger  (born 1991) wrote her debut novel The DUFF when she was 17.
Gordon Korman (born 1963), This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (1978), three sequels, and I Want to Go Home (1981).
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818) wrote the Gothic novel The Monk, now regarded as a classic of the genre, before he was twenty. It was published in 1796.
Nina Lugovskaya (1918–1993), a painter, theater director and Gulag survivor, kept a diary in 1932–37, which shows strong social sensitivities. It was found in the Russian State Archives and published 2003. It appeared in English in the same year.
Joyce Maynard (born 1953) completed Looking Back while she was 19. It was first published in 1973.
Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) wrote her novella Lost Laysen at the age of fifteen and gave the two notebooks containing the manuscript to her boyfriend, Henry Love Angel. The novel was published posthumously in 1996.
Ben Okri, the Nigerian poet and novelist,  (born 1959) wrote his first book Flowers and Shadows while he was 19.
Alice Oseman(born 1994) wrote the novel Solitaire  when she was 17 and it was published in 2014.
Helen Oyeyemi (born 1984) completed The Icarus Girl while still 18. First published in 2005.
Christopher Paolini (born 1983) had Eragon, the first novel of the Inheritance Cycle, first published 2002.
Emily Pepys (1833–1877), daughter of a bishop, wrote a vivid private journal over six months of 1844–45, aged ten. It was discovered much later and published in 1984.
Anya Reiss (born 1991) wrote her play Spur of the Moment when she was 17. It was both performed and published in 2010, when she was 18.
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) wrote almost all his prose and poetry while still a teenager, for example Le Soleil était encore chaud (1866), Le Bateau ivre (1871) and Une Saison en Enfer (1873).
John Thomas Romney Robinson (1792–1882) saw his juvenile poems published in 1806, when he was 13.
Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) had Bonjour tristesse published in 1954, when she was 18.
Mary Shelley (1797–1851) completed Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus during May 1817, when she was 19. It was first published in the following year.
Mattie Stepanek (1990–2004), an American poet, published seven best-selling books of poetry.
John Steptoe (1950–1989), author and illustrator, began his picture book Stevie at 16. It was published in 1969 in Life.
Anna Stothard (born 1983) saw her Isabel and Rocco published when she was 19.
Dorothy Straight (born 1958) in 1962 wrote How the World Began, which was published by Pantheon Books in 1964. She holds the Guinness world record for the youngest female published author.
Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505) wrote his first book, Sharh Al-Isti'aadha wal-Basmalah, at the age of 17.
F. J. Thwaites (1908–1979) wrote his bestselling novel The Broken Melody when he was 19.
John Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) wrote The Neon Bible in 1954 when he was 16. It was not published until 1989.
Alec Waugh (1898–1981) wrote his novel about school life, The Loom of Youth, after leaving school. It was published in 1917.
Catherine Webb (born 1986) had five young adult books published before she was 20: Mirror Dreams (2002), Mirror Wakes (2003), Waywalkers (2003), Timekeepers (2004) and The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle (February 2006).
Nancy Yi Fan (born 1993) published her debut Swordbird when she was 12. Other books she published as a teenager include Sword Quest (2008) and Sword Mountain (2012).
Kat Zhang (born 1991) was 20 when she sold, in a three-book deal, her entire Hybrid Chronicles trilogy. The first book, What's Left of Me, was published 2012.

See also 
Lists of books

References 

Books Written By Children and Teenagers
books
Children And Teenagers, Written By
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